Three Weeks
by bminor
Summary: It's been three weeks since Psycho Derek attacked, and Peyton has been sleeping in Lucas' bed ever since. When Lucas wakes at 2am and gets the urge to break the boundaries he had put in place, he starts to wonder if he really knows how he feels about her. Lucas POV (poor, oblivious Lucas). Rated M to be safe but it's really closer to T, it's pretty tame 'adult themes'. One-shot.


**A/N:** seriously though, they were sleeping in the same bed. There's no way he wasn't struggling with at least a little of this confusion – his saint-like obliviousness was frustrating to me. But we all know how long it takes Lucas to figure out things that are obvious to everyone else!  
 **Disclaimer:** the characters are not my own, I make no money off of this, etc etc.

…

For three weeks, he had been sleeping in the same bed as Peyton Sawyer. The thought of this a few years ago would have turned his face a shade of scarlet… among other physiological reactions. As a freshman he had made it a point to figure out subtle (or not-so-subtle, according to Haley) ways to sneak glimpses of Peyton throughout the day. Most of the time, all he would catch was a flash of blonde curls as she turned a corner in the hall, or the glimpse of her small, wry smile he got from four rows behind her in English class. Those blurry, incomplete, jigsaw pieces of Peyton were all he thought he'd ever get.

And yet there they were. Over the years, his ability to be closer to her with legitimate reason had allowed him to fill in some of the details, like the curve of her jaw when she got mad at him but wanted to laugh anyway. As they grew closer, she had looked him directly in the eye on numerous occasions and it still caught him off guard that what he found looking back at him could be so different. Sometimes her eyes sparkled like there were literal flecks of gold among the hazel, and if you didn't know her you'd never guess what she'd been through. It hadn't escaped his notice (or anybody else's, apparently) that she didn't seem to look at anybody else in that way.

But sometimes, what greeted him were sad eyes. Not pitiful, not mopey, not even angry. Just incredibly sad; weighed down by the burden of experience, struggling under a lifetime of proof which made it difficult to believe that things were going to be okay. By now he should have been desensitized to it, but every time he looked at her and caught those sad, struggling eyes, he felt his chest tighten. He had never figured out what that said about their relationship.

After the events of the past few weeks, he hadn't allowed himself to think much about that. She had been so emotionally wrung-out by the attack and he knew that what she needed was a friend. Honestly, he'd spent so long thinking about why she had so many curious effects on him, and had never figured it out – if it was anything beyond friendship he would know it by now, right?

This was the conclusion he repeated to himself when he woke one Tuesday night, around 2am. Lately, it wasn't unusual for him to wake during the night; Peyton wasn't exactly a peaceful sleeper at the moment. He would wake up and realise she had been whimpering in her sleep, or he'd wake when she grabbed his hand suddenly, startled by a nightmare. This time, it seemed to be his own brain keeping him from sleep.

He looked over at her, as he did every night, and took in some of the intimate detail of Peyton; the shallow rise and fall of her erratic breathing, the flickering of her eyelashes mid-R.E.M., and the curve of her neck against his pillow. Details in a puzzle he never thought he'd put together, and one he still felt surprised he had been given access to. When he couldn't get back to sleep he would take in the lines of her hair, soft curls spilling over the pillow, glowing white when the moon poked through the curtains and lit her. Tonight he noticed the small, wispy curls at the base of her neck and started to think...

She inhaled sharply and her body tensed, and he could tell that what came soon would be her waking in fear, and looking at him with her sad, devastating eyes. Tonight he couldn't bear the thought of those eyes. Tonight, the part of his brain that usually told him to keep a safe distance was obviously sleep deprived, because he found himself shifting closer to her and slipping his arm through hers. He pulled her tight, hoping she wouldn't wake up and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. Instead, he felt her muscles relax as she settled into the curve of his body. He found himself hugging her close, and before he knew what he was doing he buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the scent he'd be sleeping half a metre away from for three confusing weeks. He softly kissed along her neck and shoulder, and felt a knot form in his stomach as he remembered what it used to be like to be this close to her.

Her eyes remained closed, but he couldn't tell if she was genuinely asleep. If she was, was this crossing some sort of boundary? And if she wasn't, she was allowing this to happen – what the hell did that mean for them?

"Peyton?" he tested, quietly. She remained still and silent.

He tried again, this time a little louder. "Peyton, are you awake?"

This time, he heard a sleepy mumble greet him in response. "..Lucas? What's wrong?" Her brow furrowed, eyes still closed.

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine, you're safe." Without the confirmation of her consciousness he felt a little weird about what he had done, wondering if she was awake enough to realise their bodies were tucked into each other.

He started to wonder if he should take his place on his own side of the bed, when she sleepily turned over to face him, and burrowed deep into him, her arms resting on his chest and her head in the crook of his arm. Once again, before he knew what he was doing, he pulled her in closer and kissed her forehead.

"I'm safe with you," she mumbled, barely able to get out the words before falling into the first peaceful sleep she'd had in a month.

Lucas sighed deeply, entirely confused. He snapped back into repeating his mantra to try to make some sense of it all. This was just friendship. Friends take care of each other. He was just taking care of a friend when she needed him. That was what made sense.

As he lay awake, wondering if he'd get any more sleep before the 6am alarm, he started to pick out the loudest voice in his head; _why does it feel like everything is going to be okay when we're like this?_


End file.
